Submitted by Working one day in August of 2007, I couldn’t help but realize that my regular PC keyboard didn’t serve me as much as possible. I had to move my hands between the various blocks of my keyboard excessively, hundreds if not thousands of times per day, and my hands were uncomfortably close to each other. There must be a better way, I thought.
This realization was followed by an overwhelming feeling of excitement as I thought about creating the perfect hacker keyboard 0 and later, the realization that, as a software developer, I was hopelessly clueless about hardware.
This looks like something that will be expensive.
I’m guessing the components would probably cost around $200, going by the ErgoDox – a similar idea, but more exotic design (http://ergodox.org/).
Well, I guess it’s good that someone is working on keyboard innovation. But does anyone else feel like it’s being built for the hell of it rather than to address a real-world use case?
As far as innovation goes I nominate this keyboard:
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/popularis/
With each key showing a dynamic picture, it could help provide context sensitive shortcut information. Hold down CTRL/ALT and get context sensitive visual feedback about what each key will do. It would help me a lot in typing accents and what not. Or clearly label the buttons inside of a game to avoid trial and error or having to look it up. This keyboard could even enable new kinds of gaming interfaces. It’s too bad about the $1500 price tag though, that’s about 1400% more than I’d be willing to pay.
Other than the small “enter key” i liked the design.
The shift keys are too small too.
I like the concept, but I can’t give up a full-104 keyboard so I’ll stick with my Rosewill RK-9000I.
(Nothing special about it. Just a well-rated Cherry MX Blue board that happened to be on sale when I needed it. I’d have tried for something with buckling springs, but the Model M is only 101/102-key and, by the time I started considering Unicomp, they’d messed up the right modifier key block in pursuit of a Model M-sized spacebar.)
Not a big deal either way. I prefer to do my keymapping tricks in open-source or self-written software so I’m less at the whim of price and supply fluctuations when my hardware wears out.
(I’m just too used to using Win+FOO as the pattern for user-defined global hotkeys. That’s why a Model M is unsuitable.)
Edited 2015-01-30 07:15 UTC
Here is the most interesting and promising keyboard project currently existing –
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=44940.0
Has the same sane layout as the kinesis advantage keyboard, especially it has no sheared keys (a relict from old type writers):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesis_%28keyboard%29
Once you master it you don’t want to miss it!
So, it’s a Freestyle 2 keyboard with a couple of extra Super keys added, and missing all the navigation/function keys.
Not really sure why you’d want it. The Freestyle 2 already exists, and works wonderfully for long coding and writing sessions.
And, with the ability to completely remap all the keys via X11, not sure why you’d want all the programmability stuck inside the keyboard.
It’s an interesting project. I just don’t see the commercial appeal for it.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=kinesis+freestyle+2+images
I absolutely hate keyboards that place ctrl anywhere but as the outermost keys on the bottom row. Pretty much all applications I use rely heavily on ctrl with keyboard shortcuts. Sometimes I have to use a keyboard that has a function key or other such nonsense where ctrl should be and it absolutely destroys my productivity.
Looks like it would piss me off even further than the already useless “windows keys” that make the spacebar even harder to find… or the goofy space wasting “media keys” people crap all over keyboards with, extra “function keys” that make it harder to find CTRL and ALT… and of course the mushy pathetic zero feedback switches, garbage useless split keyboard crap, etc, etc… Everything I hate in a keyboard rolled into one!
Though to be fair, I find Cherry blacks to be “mushy pathetic zero feedback”
Sorry, Model M elitist jerk checking in. IBM Model M, when you have to type every last mother **** character in ASCII7, accept no substitutes.
Bud!!! Keyboards today aren’t worthy of the name. They come in designer colours and they’re too low… and when you type on em? This pathetic mushy sound. Not the Model M. They only come in beige, and when you type? KER-CLICK. That’s a man’s click Bud. A Model M says “I’m a keyboard, gimme your best shot!”